Zynga expands its game cards to distributors in Europe and Turkey

Zynga‘s quest is to get the whole world to play social games. To make that happen, the company has to set up payment mechanisms in countries where credit cards aren’t the norm. So the company is announcing today that it has cut deals to distribute its prepaid Zynga Game Cards in Europe and Turkey.

In Europe, the epay division of Euronet Worldwide will distribute the Zynga prepaid cards in 18 countries across Europe. Zynga’s games are free-to–play, where users can play for free and pay real money to buy virtual goods. The Zynga game card allows users to buy a prepaid card that they can use in electronic transactions. The users can buy the cards through epay’s cash load network (a network of 276,000 retail and 588,000 kiosk locations). Zynga has more than 265 million monthly active users on Facebook.

The epay retailers across Europe can offer consumers an in-store bonus of a free virtual item with the game card redemption. The cards will be available in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Croatia.

Meanwhile, Zynga is also offering prepaid cards in Turkey through the leading mobile payment provider in Turkey, Mikro ?deme. That deal marks the first time that Zynga Game Cards will be available in Turkey, which is one of the fastest-growing game markets. Users can pay Turkish Lira for the cards in small currency amounts. Consumers can also bill their mobile phones via the services of TurkCell and Turk Telekom.

Mikro Odeme was founded in 2008 as a mobile payment aggregator. Last month, Zynga also struck a deal with Gate2Play to distribute game cards in the Middle East and North Africa, and Zynga is using Mentez to distribute cards in Latin America. Zynga now has 12 games in 50 countries and game card distribution deals with nine partners.

Clearly, at some point, Zynga is going to be the world’s universal currency.

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Zynga confirms it hired EA’s Jeff Karp as marketing and sales chief

Confirming previous reports, Zynga verified that it poached another Electronic Arts executive. Jeff Karp, who was formerly executive vice president at EA Play, has joined Zynga as chief marketing and revenue officer.

Under his new role, Karp will oversee all aspects of marketing at the social gaming company, which has been able to recruit a number of traditional video game executives in part because of its fast growth and upcoming initial public offering.

Before Karp, Zynga hired away John Schappert, the former No. 2 executive at EA. Karp will also optimize and drive revenue with game studios and oversee international sales.

AT EA, Karp was in charge of the label that is home to the billion-dollar properties such as The Sims, SimCity, Spore and MySims. (EA Play now falls under the management of EA executive Frank Gibeau, who aslo manages the company’s sports and hardcore games). At EA, Karp had to manage tasks such as setting the roadmap for development studios, defining the product plan, managing the profit and loss statement, and delivering the games to audiences around the world.

Karp was also a leader in the EA Games label and held a variety of positions at EA over 11 years.

As we’ve noted before, Zynga has been successful at raiding EA’s talent pool in part because it has considerable market potential, even though it’s a private firm. Zynga can hand out shares of the company in the form of stock options, and those options could become extremely valuable if Zynga goes public, as it has announced it plans to do. This could be a powerful motivator for EA executives.

Other former EA executives who have joined Zynga are Steve Chiang, Mark Skaggs and Colleen McCreary. Of course, EA still has more than 7,000 employees, while Zynga has closer to 2,500, so not everyone is jumping ship. But when company leaders leave, it’s worth noting.

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Tags: EA Play, The Sims

Companies: Electronic Arts, Zynga

People: Jeff Karp

View the original article here

Zynga confirms it hired EA’s Jeff Karp as marketing and sales chief

Confirming previous reports, Zynga verified that it poached another Electronic Arts executive. Jeff Karp, who was formerly executive vice president at EA Play, has joined Zynga as chief marketing and revenue officer.

Under that role, Karp will oversee all aspects of marketing at the social gaming company, which has been able to recruit a number of traditional video game executives in part because of its fast growth and upcoming initial public offering.

Before Karp, Zynga hired away John Schappert, the former No. 2 executive at EA. Karp will also optimize and drive revenue with game studios and oversee international sales.

AT EA, Karp was in charge of the label that is home to the billion-dollar properties such as The Sims, SimCity, Spore and MySims. (EA Play now falls under the management of EA executive Frank Gibeau, who aslo manages the company’s sports and hardcore games). At EA, Karp had to manage tasks such as setting the roadmap for development studios, defining the product plan, managing the profit and loss statement, and delivering the games to audiences around the world.

Karp was also a leader in the EA Games label and held a variety of positions at EA over 11 years.

As we’ve noted before, Zynga has been successful at raiding EA’s talent pool in part because it has considerable market potential, even though it’s a private firm. Zynga can hand out shares of the company in the form of stock options, and those options could become extremely valuable if Zynga goes public, as it has announced it plans to do. This could be a powerful motivator for EA executives. Other former EA executives who have joined Zynga are Steve Chiang, Mark Skaggs and Colleen McCreary. Of course, EA still has more than 7,000 employees, while Zynga has closer to 2,500. Not everyone is jumping ship. But when company leaders leave, it’s worth noting.

Next Story: Skype purchasing GroupMe to ramp up group?communications
Previous Story: Why HP needs to merge with?SAP

Tags: EA Play, The Sims

Companies: Electronic Arts, Zynga

People: Jeff Karp

View the original article here